The loss of Eden is personally experienced by every one of us as we leave the wonder and magic and also the pains and terrors of childhood.

Some of the words and symbols and images from childhood will continually be part and parcel of my personality.

I did not fully understand the dread term 'terminal illness' until I saw Heathrow for myself.

We should always look back on our own past with a sort of contempt, as long as the tenderness is there - but please let some of the contempt be there.

Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they stop when reach puberty.

That vision of a common culture is now simply a remote wistfulness.

The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they've been in.

A bad act done will fester and create in its own way. It's not only goodness that creates. Bad things create. They have their own yeast.

There's no end to the inventiveness of critics, I tell you. Because they can't write fiction, they put their impulse into their analysis of work.

Children are very cruel, yes. Of course. Children are extraordinarily cruel little creatures.

Television's Mr. Filth: that's me.

Why should I care about you first kiss, ' he said. 'You can kiss anyone you like. But sometimes if you wanted to kiss me, that would be all right, too.

Age and size are only numbers. It's the attitude you bring to clothes that make the difference.

In California virtually everyone has had their teeth whitened. If they all smiled at once, they would give us a headache.

In my short experience of human life, the outward obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but the institutions of the dead.

I've been all over the world, and to be in Milan and see guys dressed as Jake and Elwood is amazing. They really have become a part of the culture.

To ask for a purely intellectual proof of the existence of God is like asking for the privilege of being able to see with your ears!

I write out of enthusiasm. Momentum that comes from a new idea. Eagerness to explore. I also write out of fear - fear of losing an idea - fear of feeling stagnant.

I've always had individual friends, but I didn't find the people I wanted to learn from as an adult until my midtwenties.

I am busy touring all over Europe, Japan, and Australia.

It is my intention to live an authentic life of compassion and integrity and action.